


We shall keep the man

by towardsmorning



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Gen, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pema never met Tenzin's father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We shall keep the man

**Author's Note:**

> I may have written this in half an hour, spontaneously, at 4am.
> 
> You know. Maybe.

Pema had never met Tenzin's father. If there is one thing she regrets, it's that- which is silly, because it's not something she'd had any control over, and there's nothing to have been done differently. Avatar Aang was dead and gone before she had ever met Tenzin. It's not even, she thinks with a twinge of guilt, that she necessarily wants to have met her husband's father, though of course that's part of it. Everything she hears of him is good and kind. She thinks she would have loved him very much, all the more for the wonderful son he produced.

But a part of it is that Avatar Aang is always just that to Pema: _Avatar_ Aang, not a person but an icon and a legend, and it feels wrong, to think of a man technically her family like that. Perhaps it would have been true even if she had met him, perhaps Pema would have found herself awestruck- but no, she doesn't think so. He doesn't sound like the kind of man who would let people stay like that for long if he could help it. Katara talks about him sometimes, with a terrible gentle look in her eyes that makes Pema ache to look at. Tenzin doesn't talk about him as often as she thinks he wants to; even after all these years the grief is too real and vivid, but when he does Pema latches onto every word.

It doesn't quite sink in for her that Korra is, in her way, a part of him- 'his legacy' says Tenzin, tone reverent and somehow uncertain, as though not sure what to do with the fact. The idea is simply too strange to contemplate. She meets Korra when the girl is only young, though her training is already well under way. This little girl surrounded by snow and ice, turning it to steam with reckless bursts of fire that make Pema flinch and laugh at the same time, she seems as removed from the concept of a dead legend as the clouds do from the earth. The trouble is, Pema simply does not find herself spiritual in the way Tenzin is; she appreciates it deeply in her husband but is more concerned with the practicalities of life to meditate and detach, and besides, somebody needs to keep their feet on the ground, she thinks. If all her children are to be like Jinora, airbenders and from a young age to boot, she'll need to be the one with firm roots. But the lack of spirituality makes the concept of reincarnation seem distant and not quite real to her, even if she knows that it is true, in Korra's case at least.

"Look!" the girl shouts, to nobody in particular; Pema turns to see her turn snow into water and drench a nearby guard. _My father in law,_ Pema thinks wryly, and laughs.

Still, there's a little sadness underneath it.

Later that night, Pema settles down next to Tenzin. "Tell me about your father," she asks, and at his surprised look, adds- "I was just thinking about him today, when... I saw Korra." His face cycles through a range of emotions, all easy and familiar to her. She wonders, not for the first time, what it must be like for him to see Korra and know who and what she is. To grasp it. She wonders, now for the first time, if he discusses it with Katara- and what must it be like, for Katara to teach her and know that...

At his continued hesitation, Pema offers a smile. "I just want to know more than what all the stories say. What he was like as a father."

Finally, he clears his throat and begins to speak. She leans against him and listens, and draws his words in. Maybe one day she can pass them on to Korra, because she already knows not to ask it of Tenzin.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Say Uncle by Vienna Teng.


End file.
